tl;dr: KeyChron are brilliant and cheaper than the alternatives.
My nephew was foolish enough to ask about the keyboard he spotted in a photo of my desktop so, armed with my Keychron K2, I explained what led me to it.
I got out kitchen scales and improvised some 2-10 gramme weights and carefully weighed the actuation force on my MacBook and on my Logitech K480. I found that the MacBook is approx 60grammes and that the K480—which I find too much hard work to type on—is about 70g. To me, the difference feels much more than that, but that's what the scales told me. (And yes, the A-level physicists amongst you will know that by gramme I mean, milliNewton)
I deduced that any switch of 60g or below, I would be happy with.
I then noted that the Gateron Blue is allegedly noisy (fine if you don't share a room with someone, anti-social if you do); and I examined the graphs of the actuation curves. I would have preferred the ‘clicky’ buckling spring feel of the Blue but I've used a noisy keyboard before and feel the noise can be a real downer. I definitely didn't want the linear feel which the Red and Black have (allegedly gamers like it, but I don't) so that left me with the Brown ‘Tactile’ which is in between.
I went for aluminium backlit because boo to plastic (don't kid yourself though; I do not know whether the carbon footprint of producing the aluminium keyboard is any less than that of the plastic). Nightlife without backlighting is grim, it is must-have for me. My other must-haves are Mac keycaps, and either the “tenkeyless” keyset or the full 101 keys, because I hate not having page up/down and home/end on the main keyboard.
I agonised over K1 or K2 and went for K2 because K1 didn't have the Brown switches. But … having become a closet Apple fanboi I am now disappointed that the K2 feels much higher off the desk that the Apple ultra-flat style and I may yet buy a K1 instead. Or a wrist rest.
I assure you however that the K2 is the best keyboard I've had for years. I had an IBM buckling spring keyboard for while in the 1990s, and a noisy Cherry for a while last year. The KeyChron has the same solid feel at the IBM had, but with the Brown switches is lighter and feels slightly less industrial. It is really nice, impressively priced, and I very much like it.
It will make you want to type long letters, or—should you happen to have WhatsApp Web on your computer—really really long messages to your nephew about how good your keyboard is. 🤷
Also 10% off! https://keychronwireless.refr.cc/chriscarroll
I did spend a while looking at other keyboards, mostly mechanical, but wasn't willing to pay the enormous prices. KeyChron is a half or even a third of the price of other good mechanical keyboards. Seemed a no-brainer to me.